Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

In everyday life, we make decisions in the blink of an eye and don’t give much thought to them. We meet someone and immediately categorize them, even if we “don’t see color” we do see certain things that have already been categorized in our subconscious minds. For instance, I’m traveling today and am wearing my comfy clothes. My outfit consists of a ‘Hakuna Matata’ shirt, sweat pants, tennis shoes and a light jacket. No one would ever assume I was such a dashing, smart young man. It’s not their fault, it’s just how we are conditioned. Malcolm goes into this and it could be very useful for your marketing efforts. People make snap decisions. How are you positioned when people are first exposed to you or your brand?

He goes on to talk about how we have a gut feeling or hunch and can’t explain why. It’s simple. That’s our subconscious mind slicing through all of the information we’ve been given and going to work. It isn’t a hunch, it’s our subconscious mind going into super drive and making that decision for us. So how does this affect your customers or sphere of influence? It affects it drastically! Without even knowing it, they will make an assumption about you in seconds and that will affect their opinion from here on out. So take careful notice of how you or your business are presented in the first 10 seconds. Use this to your advantage and define who you’re trying to reach and you want them to think about you or your company. What would make them have the correct assumption about you? Use it and watch your barrier to entry decrease drastically.